Young achiever

The University of Melbourne, is offering a tertiary education and sporting scholarship to the value of $14,000 as part of the Young Achiever Award.

The scholarship honours the spirit of Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop in its search for a student rugby player who exemplifies the attributes he represented: leadership, academic endeavour and sporting excellence.

Benefits

The University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever Award will be announced early 2017.

The Award recipient will receive a scholarship up to the value of $14,000. This scholarship is inclusive of:

1 The Rugby Young Achiever Award does not provide guaranteed admission to the University of Melbourne. Applications to study at the University of Melbourne must be made through VTAC. Where the award recipient is not offered a place to study at the University of Melbourne, the tertiary scholarship will still be provided should the recipient enrol at another Victorian tertiary institution in 2017.

2 Provision of the rugby scholarship is contingent on the award recipient joining the Melbourne University Rugby Football Club for the 2017 season and will be payable in two installments of equal value in April and July, 2017.

3 The Melbourne University Sport Winged Victory Scholarships are contingent on studying at the University of Melbourne. They will be facilitated as part of the Elite Athlete Program and include a range of cash and in-kind support.

2015 YAA Winner Announced

Year 12 student Harry Potter was overwhelmed to learn he won the 2015 University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever Award.

Rising rugby star Harry Potter says he is excited about his future after winning the 2015 University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever Award.

The award provides a $14,000 education and sporting scholarship.

"At the end of the day, I just love the sport and I think that's why the award meant a lot to me. I love playing rugby, and it's undoubtedly going to help me play as much of it as I possibly can, so it's just awesome for me," Potter said.

Potter received the award at the Melbourne Rebels Weary Dunlop Club luncheon, as part of The University of Melbourne and the Melbourne Rebels' partnership. It honours the spirit of University alumnus Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop by identifying a student rugby player who exemplifies leadership, academic endeavour and sporting excellence.

The Year 12 Brighton Grammar School student plays fly half and has represented the Vic Schools Under 18 team. Potter recently qualified for the Melbourne Rebels Under 20 squad, and will be training intensely during the summer.

"Hopefully I'll be able to be training in the off season over the next few months at a higher level than I have before with five training sessions a week," he said.

The 17-year-old, who is aiming to study Science or Environments at The University of Melbourne in 2016, said the award would enable him to pursue his goals in rugby while simultaneously receiving a good education.

Rugby Young Achiever launched at Xavier Sevens

The University of Melbourne launched its 2015 Rugby Young Achiever Award at the sensational Xavier Sevens tournament on Saturday 18 April. Showcasing much of Victoria's junior rugby talent, the early season fixture for the state's rugby playing secondary schools was the perfect launching pad for the award, now entering its fifth year. The entertaining day of rugby culminated with the Senior Boy's final between perennial powerhouse St. Kevin's College and St. Patrick's College from Ballarat. In the end, St. Kevin's added another piece of silverware to the trophy cabinet.

"We've had the chance to meet with a lot of interested students and parents today", said University Sport Development Manager Rod Warnecke.

"The feedback on the Award has been extremely supportive, and we're quietly excited that we'll be receiving a record number of applications this year. And a big thanks to our hosts, Xavier College – they really know how to put on a great show", added Mr Warnecke.

Injured Melbourne Rebel Laurie Weeks also supported the event and the launch of the award. The Rebels also provided a number of items of merchandise and tickets that formed part of the University's tournament lucky draw. Like the Rugby Young Achiever Award, the University's partnership with the Melbourne Rebels is also into its fifth year. The University is the Official Education Partner of the Melbourne Rebels and Melbourne Rising. Applications for the 2015 University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever Award will open in mid-May.

Australian schoolboy, Sione Tuipulotu is Young Achiever for 2014

Sione Tuipulotu from St. Kevin's College is the winner of the 2014 University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever Award. The award was announced at the Melbourne Rebels' Weary Dunlop Luncheon at Crown Palladium in front of more the 500 guests on Thursday 16 October.

The star number 12 from Victorian Secondary Schools Rugby Union (VSRU) Division 1 champions St. Kevin's had an outstanding year of rugby in 2014. Besides leading his school to their third successive VSRU title, Tuipulotu was also a member of the Melbourne Rebels U17 squad, the Victorian Schools U18 team and the Australian Schoolboys team who recently returned from a tour of New Zealand.

Tuipulotu has also been an active participant in his school's community outreach and charitable activities. He hopes to study for a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2015.

In accepting the award, the humble young man thanked the University and the Rebels for offering such an incentive for up-and-coming rugby players. He also paid tribute to his team-mates and school.

"I'd especially like to thank Mr Bob Windle, my coach at St. Kevin's, for his guidance on the rugby field over these past years, and my parents for the encouragement and support", said Tuipulotu.

Besides the honour of being named the fourth University of Melbourne Rugby Young Achiever, the $7,000 award provides Tuipulotu with a $2,500 academic scholarship, a $2,500 rugby scholarship and an additional series of in-kind support valued at $2,000 from the University's Elite Athlete Program.

Tuipulotu won the award from Rugby Young Achiever finalists Rhys Griffiths of Ivanhoe Grammar and Robert Renzella from Melbourne Grammar, who were announced as runners-up. Both runners-up will receive a Peter Hone rugby scholarship valued at $3,500.

Our "Weary"

Edward Dunlop grew up in Wangaratta, Victoria and attended Benalla High School. He started an apprenticeship in pharmacy when he finished school, and moved to Melbourne in 1927. There, he studied at the Victorian College of Pharmacy and then the University of Melbourne, where he obtained a scholarship
in medicine. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1934 with first class honours in pharmacy and medicine

While at university, Dunlop took up rugby union, commencing as a fourth grade player with the Melbourne University Rugby Club in 1931. He made a lightning-fast progression through the grades, to state and then to the national representative level becoming the first Victorian-born player to represent
the Wallabies. He made his national representative debut against the All Blacks at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 23 July 1932 as a number 8. In the first Test of 1934 he again appeared for Australia, this time as a lock. Australia won the match 25-11, and two weeks later the second and final match of that year's Bledisloe Cup series finished in a draw. Although Dunlop missed that match due to injury he stands as a member of the first Wallaby squad to have won the Bledisloe Cup away from New Zealand. Posthumously,
in June 2008, he was inducted into the Wallaby Hall of Fame. To date, he is the only Victorian so honoured.

Dunlop had been a school cadet, and he continued his part-time army service until 1929, when his service ceased under pressure from his pharmacy studies. He re-enlisted in 1935 and was commissioned into the Australian Army Medical Corps on 1 July with the rank of Captain. In May 1938 Dunlop left Australia
for London by boat. He was the ship's medical officer. In London he attended St Bartholomew's Medical School and in 1938 became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

At the outbreak of World War II, Dunlop was appointed directly from London as VX259, to medical headquarters in the Middle East, where he developed the mobile surgical unit. In Greece he liaised with forward medical units and Allied headquarters, and at Tobruk he was a surgeon until the Australian
Divisions were withdrawn for home defence. His troopship was diverted to Java in an ill-planned attempt to bolster the defences there. On 26 February 1942, he was promoted to temporary lieutenant-colonel. Dunlop became a Japanese prisoner of war in 1942 when he was captured in Bandung, Java, together
with the hospital he was commanding.

Because of his leadership skills, he was placed in charge of prisoner-of-war camps in Java, despite not being the senior ranking officer there.. After being held in a number of camps in Java, he was eventually moved to the Thai-Burma railway, where prisoners of the Japanese were being used as forced
labourers to construct a strategically important supply route between Bangkok and Rangoon. Dunlop commanded the first Australians sent to work on the railway, in January 1943. Conditions in the railway camps were primitive and horrific — food was totally inadequate, beatings were frequent
and severe, there were no medical supplies, tropical disease was rampant, and the Japanese required a level of productivity that would have been difficult for fully fit and properly equipped men to achieve.

Along with a number of other Commonwealth Medical Officers, Dunlop's dedication and heroism became a legend among prisoners. A courageous leader and compassionate doctor, he boosted morale in those terrible prison camps and jungle hospitals. Dunlop defied his captors, gave hope to the sick and eased
the anguish of the dying. He became, in the words of one of his men, a lighthouse of sanity in a universe of madness and suffering. His example was one of the reasons why Australian survival rates were the highest on record.

After 1945, with the darkness of the war years behind him, Dunlop turned his energies to the task of healing and building. He was to state later that, in suffering we are all equal. He devoted himself to the health and welfare of former prisoners-of-war and their families, and worked to promote better
relations between Australia and Asia. He also served with surgical teams in another theatre of war, Vietnam, in 1975.

He was active in many spheres of endeavour. In his own field of surgery, he pioneered new techniques against cancer. He became closely involved with a wide range of health and educational organisations, and his tireless community work had a profound influence on Australians and on the peoples of Asia.
As well as numerous tributes and distinctions bestowed upon him in his own country, he received honours from Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom.

In addition to his knighthood in 1967, 'Weary' Dunlop received many honours and awards throughout his life, including; the Order of the British Empire (1947); Companion of the Order of Australia (1987), Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St John of Jerusalem (1992), Knight Grand Cross (1st Class) of
the Most Noble Order of the Royal Crown of Thailand (1993); Honourary Fellow of the Imperial College London; Honourary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; Honourary Life Member of the Returned and Services League of Australia; and Life Governor of the Royal Women's Hospital and
the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. 'Weary' Dunlop has also received the honour of having the Canberra suburb of Dunlop named after him in 1993.

In 1976 he was named Australian of the Year and in 1988 he was named one of '200 Great Australians' (and according to his sons John and Alex, surely one of Australia's 200 worst motor car drivers!). His image is on the 1995 issue Australian fifty cent coin with the words 'They Served Their Country
in World War II, 1939 – 1945', surrounded by strands of barbed wire.

'Weary' Dunlop also has a platoon named after him in the Army Recruit Training Centre, Blamey Barracks, Kapooka. Weary Dunlop Platoon is a holding platoon for recruits that want to leave training.

Pre-war Melbourne University Rugby Football Club team

In 1976 he was named Australian of the Year and in 1988 he was named one of '200 Great Australians' (and according to his sons John and Alex, surely one of Australia's 200 worst motor car drivers!). His image is on the 1995 issue Australian fifty cent coin with the words 'They Served Their Country
in World War II, 1939 – 1945', surrounded by strands of barbed wire.'Weary' Dunlop also has a platoon named after him in the Army Recruit Training Centre, Blamey Barracks, Kapooka. Weary Dunlop Platoon is a holding platoon for recruits that want to leave training. The University of Melbourne Young Achiever Award will honour the spirit of Sir Edward "Weary"
Dunlop in its search for a student player who exemplifies the attributes that he made famous: leadership, academic endeavour and sporting excellence.

For further details please email The University’s Elite Athlete Program Coordinator at young-achiever@unimelb.edu.au or call on 03 9035 3626 with any queries.

The Melbourne University Rugby Football Club

The Melbourne University Rugby Football Club (MURFC) is a foundation Club of the Victorian Rugby Union and has been an active participant since 1909 in the Victorian Premier Division, which is the leading level of rugby in Melbourne.

The MURFC fields 3 teams in the Division across First, Second, and Third Grades. In 2011 we have 2 Colts (U21) teams and an over 35′s "Gents" team. Our members traditionally come from around the world including France, Ireland, New Zealand, Wales and the Pacific Islands. Joining the MURFC is
an excellent way to meet people if you are new to Melbourne and want to establish local and international social and professional contacts.

Elite Athlete Program

The University of Melbourne provides a range of other support for elite and emerging student-athletes via the Elite Athlete Program.

This support includes additional sport scholarship support from Melbourne University Sport and/or affiliated sporting clubs, international travel grants, subsidies to represent the University at University and Varsity Sport competitions, aquatic and fitness memberships, strength and conditioning advice
and physiotherapy services.

Course entry consideration (future students) and flexible study assistance (current students) is also available to student-athletes recognised under the University's Elite Athlete and Performers Entry Scheme and Elite Athlete and Performers Procedure, respectively.